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CAKE Closes $60 Million in Funding

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Swedish electric motorcycle/moped maker CAKE has just announced the closing of a $60 million funding round, which will help the company scale its production and bolster retail and service locations for the two-wheeled brand.

According to the company’s press release, the fundraising was done via two convertible notes (financial debt instruments that can be turned into equity stakes in the company, at a later time), totaling $14 million and $46 million each.

The bulk of the financing came from Swedish pension fund AMF, while the rest of the funding came from several investors, led by current CAKE shareholders Creandum and Headline.

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Bikes

BMW Unveils a Pair Urban Electric Bike Concepts for the Future

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Transportation is changing. If you need proof beyond that statement, take a look at how brands like BMW are envisioning transportation in the future.

There has been no shortage lately of two-wheel brands reevaluating how people will move in close urban environments, and no brand has been experimenting more in this space than BMW and BMW Motorrad.

The German company already showed us last week its electric Honda Grom contender, the BMW Concept CE 02, which is aimed at younger riders (or non-riders) with a fun pint-sized form factory.

Now, the Bavarians have envisioned two more concepts for their last-mile arsenal, dubbed the BMW i Vision AMBY and BMW Motorrad i Vision AMBY. Names only an engineer could love.

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Bikes

Cake Makka Debuts as a Cheap & Purposeful Electric Moped

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Swedish mobility company Cake has made a name for itself by creating intriguing two-wheelers that are so damn purposeful in their design that they take on a functional beauty of their own.

Their debut bike, the Cake Kalk& was lauded for this design ethos, though its $14,000 was a deal-stopper for many. The sub-$10,000 Cake Kalk Ink helped things in that regard, but the Swedish brand has still been on the pricier side of the market.

Responding to those feelings, the Swedes have a new, more affordable two-wheeler on the market now.

Say hello to the Cake Makka, which is a downright utilitarian Scandinavian moto that starts at $3,800. 

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Bikes

Walt Siegl Motorcycles Debuts Electric Motorcycle/Moped Crossover

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Walt Siegl Motorcycles has a new two-wheeled work of art for us to drool over, and once again this machine is an electric motorcycle, following up Walt’s last bike, the beautiful PACT.

“Motorcycle” might be the wrong word to use on this latest bike though, as Walt’s creation lives in that blurred space between motorcycles, mopeds, and pedal-assist machinery, not to dissimilar from a plethora of other EV entries, including CAKE.

It is an interesting space for the motorcycle community to explore, and we have really only seen it on the OEM side with bikes like the Honda Grom and its ilk (which are selling like hotcakes, we might add).

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Bikes

Cleveland Cyclewerks Releases an Electric Falcon

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Cleveland Cyclewerks is known better for its low-cost small-displacement gas motorcycles, but now they have something a bit more electrifying in their lineup.

Say hello the Falcon, an electric motorcycle that continues the Cleveland Cyclewerks focus, but in a new way.

The electric Cleveland Cyclewerks Falcon has a futuristic look to match its modern drivetrain, but it still fills that small-displacement role that the American brand has carved out for itself.

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Dirt

Cake Kalk INK – The Future Just Got a Little Bit More Affordable

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Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK…say that three times fast. This Beetlejuice of electric motorcycles is the epitome of the growing “not a motorcycle” segment of the motorcycle industry, which is straddling the divide that sees bicycles on the other side of it.

This is of course nothing new for the Swedish company Cake, which has been working on its e-mopeds since 2016. Now, we have the latest iteration of the Kalk series, the Cake Kalk INK, which tackles perhaps the biggest criticism of the Kalk line: its price tag.

Coming with a price of $9,500 MSRP, the Cake Kalk INK still isn’t as cheap as many would like, but it does fit in the pricing scheme of being just above high-end e-bikes and just under pricing of potent electric dirt bikes.

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News

Energica & Dell’Orto Partner on Electric Drivetrains & Plot to Take Over the World

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Interesting developments on the EV side of the motorcycle industry, as Energica & Dell’Orto have decided to team up on making electric drivetrain systems for small and mid-sized motorcycles.

The move does not mean that Energica is about to burgeon its lineup with smaller electric motorcycles, but instead it means that Energica will follow Dell’Orto’s lead as a product supplier for other OEMs.

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News

Video Shows Harley-Davidson Electric Concepts in Action

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Harley-Davidson continues to push its new electric agenda, releasing this week two videos that show its electric scooter and electric moped models in action, just ahead of the X-Games in Aspen, Colorado.

The videos are interesting for two very important reasons. First, they show the two concepts running, just a few weeks after we saw the concepts in actual photos, not sketches.

Not exactly exciting two-wheeled video porn, nevertheless it shows that Harley-Davidson is hard at work bringing these bikes to market…though they do seem pretty rough and in the early stages of development.

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Bikes

Harley-Davidson’s Electric Concepts Begin to Take Form

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This is the year. This is the year that Harley-Davidson steps beyond decades of being stuck in the past, and instead takes a chance on leading the future.

I am of course referring to the Bar & Shield brand’s move to debut electric motorcycles – starting first with the Livewire electric cruiser.

The Harley-Davidson Livewire doesn’t exist in a vacuum, however. This is because the American motorcycle company has plans for a whole host of electric two-wheelers, which ranges from an electric bicycle, all the way up to full-sized models.

Today, we get a glimpse at the first of these additional models (along with more details on the Livewire electric cruiser), with Harley-Davidson showing us the physical forms of its electric scooter and and electric moped concepts.

The two motorcycles look very similar to the concept sketches that we saw last year, which is a good thing to our eye, as both machines look fit for the part.

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Bikes

Harley-Davidson Outlines Its Future Electric Lineup

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The biggest announcement from Harley-Davidson today wasn’t its adventure-touring motorcycle (though it looks interesting), and it wasn’t its new Streetfighter or Custom models either (one of these I like, the other not so much).

The big news wasn’t the Livewire getting closer to production, though that is close to the mark, and where this story is ultimately headed.

All of these announcement would have been worthy of their own day in the press cycle, but the real news from the Bar & Shield brand is a look at Harley-Davidson’s upcoming electric lineup, which is coming across as very robust, and shows a decisive plan for the future.

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News

Motorcycle Sales in Europe Show Strong Growth

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Motorcycle sales in the United States might be tanking, but things are looking fairly positive across the pond in Europe, as the ACEM reports a 4.7% increase in motorcycle sales for Q1 2018, for a total of 203,853 units sold in the first three months of this year.

The increase in sales is due to key markets like France (+9.1%), Germany (+1.9%), and the UK (+7.4%) showing good growth, compared to Q1 2017.

However, not all the European countries are showing increases in motorcycle sales, with the Czech Republic (-17.3%), Poland (-28.7%), and Austria (-18.9%) pulling the sales growth figure down considerably.

Not all segments are growing too. While the big bikes are seeing sales increases, European sales for mopeds are down considerably for Q1 2018 (40.2%), to the tune of a 24,996 unit sales decline over last year.

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